There is a book called a new kind of Christian by Brian D. MacClaren you might like (his second book is called a generous orthodoxy which is also awesome).

His approach (or what I took from it) is that the best way Christians can share their faith is by loving. Go feed the poor, help the needy, set up hospitals, provide counselling and let your actions speak for themselves. (Not a criticism of you...summary of the book).

Anyway, your statement on the mandate of your religion being spreading the gospel reminded me of that.

Be who you are and say what you feel, because those who mind don't matter and those who matter don't mind.
Dr. Seuss (1904 - 1991)

Oh, it has been. Jehovah's Witness re-interpreted the entire book to make it fit their religion, making their own translation. The Mormons allowed themselves to be scammed by Smith, and now read from the Book of Mormon. A few year back they tried to come out with the NIWV (New International Women's Version) of the Bible, where anytime God would normally be referred to as male, he would now be referred to as female. So, there have been perversions over the years, but only a few keep those for their own.

I don't believe that God would allow every interpretation to be wrong. I believe he made sure that the oldest texts we have now, are true and accurate and gave us people who would translate them properly.

If you'll notice, most of the stupid things the Church has done has been done because of absuing the scriptures, and not taking them in their entirety or context. People misuse scripture all the time, always have, always will. But the Scriptures are never at fault because they've always held wisdom, even if those reading it chose to see folly instead.

Willow:
I'm a little wary of MacClaren because I think he's grouped with Rick Warren and his ilk, but I'll see if I can't swing by the Christian Bookstore and glance through it sometime this week. Thanks for the tip

Take the bible in it's context and entirity. Interesting point. Frequently the bible is taken in the context of the time and place it is being read. The bible is read in a certain fashion today, but the evangelical point of view is only 300 years old. The protestant point of view is around 500 years old. For the 1500 years before that everyone read the Vulgate, the Roman Catholic bible, which is far more complete than the King James version. And it was interpreted in much the same way. How can it be that only modern evangelical protestants can be correct and christianity before their interpretation be wrong?
An illustration from history;
As the Anglo-Saxon invasions moved through the island of Britain, overpowering the native faith of the Celts and even the Columbian christianity that had been living alongside the old religion. The monks kept a record of what happened. The records have been compiled into "The Anglo-Saxon Chronicles"
In 586 AD.The king of the west saxons decided to invade the isle of Wight. This is a small island off the south coast of England and at that time was a Celtic kingdom that had refused christianity. The people were determinedly pagan. The king of the saxons, following the injunction of the prophet Samuel and taking the bible literally and in context, ordered that every man, woman and child living on the island should be put to death.
It is recorded by a monk, who is known as the venerable Bede, that with much sacrifice and valor the sons of the Celtic king managed to escape to the mainland. They were pursued by the saxons. The two young men sought refuge with a monk, when the king arrived the monk pleaded with the king to allow time for him to convert the young men. The king agreed and apparently the monk was successful. The two young men were converted to christianity and were baptized. Then, according to Bede, They went joyously to the knife.
The whole bible, taken literally and in context.

It'll be all right in the end. If it's not all right, it's not the end.

1. I don't think that all of the previous translations are wrong. I think there has always been an accurate account.

In the story you told the Bible was
Taken literally: Yes
In context: No

The laws of war were abolished when Christ died. And even before then, those laws were only for the Jews. No angle, saxon, celt, gael, pict, goth, mongol, or any of them are jews and God never had them do what he had the Jews do.

The King was neither a jew, nor living in Old Testament times. He followed out rules that had been abolished for centuries. He took it out of context. Those rules were never meant to apply to him, but he decided to apply them to himself.

Oh well! I don't blame you for your response to my account. It's what I get from most christians when i present this occurrence. I was hoping for something different though. Anyway, our discussions seem to have calmed down a bit and I notice you have managed to charm some of our members, so i'd like to ask you a question.
When Jesus was on the cross he said "My God! My God! why hast thou forsaken me?"
How is this explained in terms of Jesus being God and the notion that he is forsaken?
You don't have to answer of course but I'm just wondering how you would explain it.

It'll be all right in the end. If it's not all right, it's not the end.

Rick Warren... *shivers* ... I wrote out a huge rant about Purpose Driven churches, but its way off topic. I might have to go on a rant about it sometime though. I'm sure you guys would find it entertaining.

I'll check my library for that, Willow. Thanks for the tip.

Daibanjo:
I think that when Christ was about to die, He physically/spiritually took every sin that man ever had and ever will commit into himself, literally taking the sins as his own. In that moment, he had sin within himself and was cut off from the Father. In that moment he felt the dispair of Hell until his body died, releasing him from the burden of those sins, and effectively erasing them.

I don't know if that's true. I'm not sure if I believe that's how it happened, it just the best theory I've heard.

Thank you for taking the time to answer me. The point that has always puzzled me about this is, how could he be cut off from the father if he is the father made flesh? That's the part i've never yet had a satisfactory answer to.

It'll be all right in the end. If it's not all right, it's not the end.

He's not the Father made flesh. At least, not if you believe in the Trinity. There's the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Jesus, the Son, is God and lives as God. But, he chose do descend to Earth in human form, cutting himself off from the Trinity specifically for the purpose of bringing Salvation to humankind.

Graver wrote:
I think that when Christ was about to die, He physically/spiritually took every sin that man ever had and ever will commit into himself, literally taking the sins as his own. In that moment, he had sin within himself and was cut off from the Father. In that moment he felt the dispair of Hell until his body died, releasing him from the burden of those sins, and effectively erasing them.

Oh well thats O.K then. We don't have to worry WHAT we do, because....IT'S ALL BEEN ERASED!!!

I find that to be a sad statement. Why would some article know more about your own beliefs than you do? I don't think it can! If you don't know your own beliefs, then they're not your beliefs; they're someone Else's.

I have a couple pages more of this thread to read but I had to answer this before I forgot.

I didn't say those articles knew more than we did, just that they could tell you more.
I know my faith, and my beliefs. I doubt they perfectly match anyone else's on this site, and they probably feel similarly about their own. My point was that telling you everything about ourselves will take a great deal of time and effort. We're doing this in forum form, so much space as well. It's a pain in the butt, especially with all that information sitting there, trying to talk you through the basics when you could easily go and read them from the library, if you could be bothered. And as our beliefs all differ, it would be helpful if you had a basis of knowledge on the subject of paganism, which is broad. We argue with you often. We question you, and you question us. It takes a long time to get anywhere. It's quite possible that we could be here years without you learning anything particularly useful from us. That is why I suggested you go and read the damned library. THEN come and ask questions. It's a good library.

Those articles don't know more about my beliefs than I do. But they know more about things like reiki than I do. There are facets of the collective belief of "paganism" held by members of this board that I know nothing about. I don't plan to share the ins and outs of my beliefs with you, though, so you'll learn more from them than from me.

Graver wrote:
[So, if a person is Buddhist their whole life and doesn't accept Christ, they will not go to Heaven.]
{An that is consistent with a loving God; how?}
The fact that they lived their entire lives with the opportunity to accept Christ's love and choose not to with every moment of their being.

So, if a person has never been exposed to christianity, or has never considered there to be a choice, would they still be refused entry to heaven?

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THERE are all the answers you need. I can assure you we are NOT going to repeat 24741 articles just to satisfy idle curiosity.

Graver wrote:

Windwalker wrote:
Those articles will tell you more than we can.

I find that to be a sad statement. Why would some article know more about your own beliefs than you do? I don't think it can! If you don't know your own beliefs, then they're not your beliefs; they're someone Else's.

You seem to miss the point that those articles are written by us. Therefore I see no evidence for your assumption; "I find that to be a sad statement. Why would some article know more about your own beliefs than you do?"

Ragnar's right, all those articles are by us, it's why so many of us have taken offence to you asking for pieces of us but not wanting to take the time to read what we have written. All those articles are for you, and everyone like you and everyone like us, they are for all to read, to learn and understand that the world is not made up of absolutes, but little tiny pieces all formed into one giant universe to make up everything we know and everything we don't yet. Those articles you scoff at are exactly what you've been asking for, they are mirrors of us, windows to our souls, our worlds. You reject what we have already given, I meant alot more of you when I asked that you play nice, not just picking fights, playing nice involves alot more then I think you realize. This is our sanctuary, we bare our souls here, be careful, they're fragile.

Maybe now you're starting to understand that while I may have been born predispositioned to be pretty batty, my parents saw to it that it was a certainty and completely unavoidable. -Me